Looking to venture out

[print_4470]

I work for a company that has an in house printing department, which I manage. As of now we only print internal signage and do not offer our services to outisde customers for purchase. We're currently looking to get into more of the retail world and do some printing for other local companies. I'm guessing that we would ideally try to line up larger corporate clients that would be doing larger runs of prints, and not so much focus on the one-off graduation and happy birthday banners.

I'm looking for any information that you think would be beneficial for someone who is about to enter the retail/wholesale/print for profit world. I will list the equipment that we currently have, but I would be very curious to get some opinions on what types of new printers or cutters would offer the most bang for the buck and open up the most doors for us in terms of capability and profitability.

Current Printers & Equipment
Multiple Canon 8000s aqueous printers
1 Canon 9000s 60" aqueos printer
Xerox Color 550 MFP with Fiery Rip
Seal 62 Base large format cold laminator with heat assist
Dahle 858 stack cutter
Keencut Evolution 106" table cutter
Graphtec FC7000 24" cutter/plotter
Onyx 10 Rip

Looking into purchasing
Mutoh ValueJet 1624 64" solvent printer
Kona 1650 65" cutter/plotter

Questioning if we need
hydraulic/electric/pneumatic stack cutter
banner hemming machine


Thanks for any and all help.

 

[JustinB]

Any reason to not consider the Mimaki printers or the HP latex printers?

 

[print_4470]

I would possibly consider Mimaki, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from my horrible experience with HP Z6100's. Both their unreliable printers and their (lack of) customer service left lasting impressions with me.

 

[chad.trent]

I would possibly consider Mimaki, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from my horrible experience with HP Z6100's. Both their unreliable printers and their (lack of) customer service left lasting impressions with me.

I feel your pain. We have a Z6100 here and it's been nothing short of a nightmare.